Re: Is the Ada run-time required to detect out-of-memory

["Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@comcast.net>]

Ludovic Brenta wrote:

> I just closed your bug report after determining that the issue was not
> in libgnat but in the kernel.  Basically, Linux sends SIGKILL to
> programs that exhaust physical RAM; as you know, SIGKILL cannot be
> caught so libgnat has no chance to raise an exception.  If the virtual
> memory is exhausted before physical memory is, then libgnat does raise
> Storage_Error.

Did you refile the bug against the kernel?  As I understand it now, the 
problem is not that the kernel raises SIGKILL if physical RAM is 
exhausted, but that malloc doesn't check that the allocation can succeed 
before making it.

Having said that, I suspect that this should be a low priority bug, and 
it will be pretty hard to fix.  It may take adding a version of malloc 
that does the check, and leaving the decision as to which one to call to 
the compiler run-time.  (GNAT should then use the new call when 
allocating storage pools, and probably continue using the current 
version for allocations in the default storage pool.

-- 

                                           Robert I. Eachus

"The terrorists rejoice in the killing of the innocent, and have 
promised similar violence against Americans, against all free peoples, 
and against any Muslims who reject their ideology of murder. Their 
barbarism cannot be appeased, and their hatred cannot be satisfied. 
There's only one way to deal with terror: We must confront the enemy and 
stay on the offensive until these killers are defeated." -- George W. Bush